An Invitation to Become The Beloved Community: An Ecumenical Conversation about Racism

Friends, 2020 has been a challenging year. The human family is experiencing new challenges while revisiting old wounds. At Lincoln’s first Juneteenth Celebration, the Rev. Glenn Shelton spoke of two pandemics our country is currently fighting: the one known as COVID-19 has been going on for four months; the other has been going on for 401 years—racism. As a people of faith, we have a responsibility to work toward ending both.

            During the last four months, the session and I have taken a proactive approach in doing our part to help flatten the curve of the coronavirus. It hasn’t been easy. Each week brought new challenges, and if 2020 has taught us anything, the future will likely have them, too. Now that Illinois has entered phase 4, we can enter into our sanctuary again with limited numbers and restrictions regarding worship. Throughout this season, the session has leaned into Christ’s great commandment to love one another as Christ loves us. We know not everyone shares the same experiences with the virus, but as Christians, we all understand the task to which Christ calls us is to love each other, especially the most vulnerable. As we move further into (and prayerfully beyond) the pandemic, we will continue to maintain this approach.

            As Presbyterians, we recognize that despite our love of God, we still find ways to sin or sperate ourselves from God, each other, or own self. God loves us enough to call us to confess whatever gets in the way of having a good relationship with the Holy One of Perfect Love. When someone wrongs us, we have the responsibility of bringing it to their attention so that the relationship that has been harmed can be restored and healed. If we fail to say anything and just ignore them instead, we are not exhibiting love. A call to confession is a call to further love, which God does with a reassurance of divine good intentions toward us so that we're not afraid to confess our shortcomings in the light of God's love.

            We also understand that sin is not only individual, but it is also social. Even though we don’t want or mean to, we have a share in collective sin when we belong to certain groups who sin against others. Sin is complex and inescapable. This is why Presbyterians have a confession of sin in almost every worship service, and the greatest sin may be the unwillingness to admit that we are sinful. One sin that continues to plague Christians in the United States is racism. The PCUSA defines racism as the systemic and structural ways that our society is still white-centered, white-dominant, and white-identified. It is an ongoing structure of society that gives advantage to whites at the expense of people of other racial groups. We know that all of humanity is created in the image and likeness of God, and yet, not everyone is treated as beloved children of God. Racism is the exact opposite of what God wants for God’s people. It is the rejection of the other, which is entirely contrary to the Word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ. Racism is a lie about our fellow siblings, for it says that some are less human than others.

            What can we do about the sin of racism? One of the young people who spoke at a recent rally invited white people to educate ourselves about this pandemic. Listening to the stories of some of those speakers and other siblings of color has compelled our Session to be intentional about better understanding racism and how we can eradicate it from the different systems in which we exist. We have decided to read, study, and discuss the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Dr. Robin Diangelo. We will not be studying this book alone. I will be leading the discussions with the Rev. Laurie Hill, pastor of the St. John UCC. Together, our churches are making a bold statement by declaring that racism is a sin in which we no longer want to participate.

            Laurie and I will offer two discussions every Wednesday for 8 weeks. The schedule is as follows:

·      July 1—1:30 pm @ St. John UCC & 7:00 pm on Zoom—Intro to the book and welcome from Laurie and Adam

·      July 8—1:30 pm @ First Presbyterian Church of Lincoln [Adam leading discussion] & 7:00 pm on Zoom we will discuss chapters 1 & 2

·      July 15—1:30pm @ St. John UCC [Laurie leading] & 7:00 pm on Zoom we will discuss chapters 3 & 4

·      July 22—1:30 pm @ St. John UCC [Laurie leading] & 7:00 pm on Zoom [Adam leading] we will discuss chapters 5-6

·      July 29—1:30 pm @ St. John UCC [Laurie leading] & 7:00 pm on Zoom [Adam leading] we will discuss chapter 7 & 8

·      August 5—1:30 pm @ St. John UCC [Laurie leading] & 7:00 pm on Zoom [Adam leading] we will discuss chapters 9 & 10

·      August 12—1:30 pm @ St. John UCC [Laurie leading] & 7:00 pm on Zoom [Adam leading] we will discuss chapters 11 & 12

·      August 19—1:30 pm @ St. John UCC & 7:00 pm on Zoom Laurie and Adam will conclude our education on racism

The books can be purchased from the office for $10. I encourage you if it is a practice you are familiar with, to purchase your own on an e-reader device. You can purchase the book on Amazon here. 

            We are doing a bold thing. We are not doing this only as members of the Lincoln First Presbyterian or as the St. John UCC. We are not doing this bold thing as only as Christians of Logan County. We are not doing this bold thing merely as siblings to people of color. We are doing this bold thing as human beings, created by the love of God, who has called us to live in this time and in this era for a particular and real purpose. As we strive to resist the pandemics around us—not only coronavirus and racism—remember Christ’s calls us to combat the pandemics of apathy, indifference, isolation, intolerance, and oppression. These are surely the real work God is calling us to confront, and by God’s grace and with your help, we shall be an example of a community willing to engage with the hard work.

Through Stained Glass: Choosing Compassion, a sermon

“Choosing Compassion”

Genesis 22.1-14

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Tests.

I’ve never been a fan of them.

Growing up, I was never really good at them.

In fact, I was one of those students who became anxious to the point where I would become my worst enemy. You know what I mean, right? I would study day and night, memorize and theorize until I knew what I would be tested on like the back of my hand.

Then test day would come—and I would freeze. Suddenly I forgot all the information I learned, and 6x6 suddenly became Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and the square root of 49 was a squinting modifier.

Of course, all of this was intensified by the clock. One of my worst memories from school was when we started to time test. Teachers use them to check if students can quickly recall math facts (automaticity). However, timed tests also have some drawbacks, which can be really damaging: They promote and single-handedly CAUSE math anxiety. Etched in my head is the memory of taking one of these tests with the clock ticking and watching my classmates one by one turn their papers in. I was so anxious that when I finished the front side, I turned it in. Little did I know that there was a backside to the exam.

Tests are not my favorite. Even open book tests give me problems. Why? Because the answers seem too obvious, right? So I would overthink the question, and though the answer was right there, I would find a way to talk myself out of it because, well, it was too easy.

I guess what I’m trying to communicate here is, test anxiety is real!

Know what else gives me anxiety? The test we encounter today in the Genesis story. In fact, I’m not the only one. Many preachers skip over the story of Abraham binding Isaac because, well, it’s a terrible text that involves a test that makes many anxious.

Why, though? What is it about this text that causes us to squirm? I mean, if we look closely—Isaac isn’t sacrificed, and God does what God does—keeps God’s promise to Abraham. Also, we must remember this story wasn’t written for us by people like us in a time like ours. The story takes place in a time when child sacrifice was a common practice in a polytheistic culture—polytheism being a belief in many gods. With this in mind, we can see then why this magnificently told story, known as the “’Akedah,” or the ‘Binding of Isaac,’ is one of the gems of the biblical narrative. Again, you might be asking, “Why,” or “How?” The simple answer is this: one of the interpretations of this text is that the God of Abraham is not like the other gods—where the other gods require the sacrifice of children, the God of Abraham does not. God chooses compassion.

Let’s be honest for a minute. While we know the ending of the story, it still causes all sorts of anxiety, right? Right from the beginning, it causes fear as God tests Abraham. And it isn’t a times table test either, it is a test to sacrifice Abraham’s favored son, Isaac, whom he loved. The storyteller really makes a point to the story listeners that Abraham loved Isaac. The anxiety builds as Abraham forces Isaac to carry the very wood on which he would be sacrificed. If that doesn’t break your heart, the question Isaac asks of his dad will, “Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

What in the world? I want to be angry at Abraham—and yet, I must remember this is a story attempting to communicate something more significant—the way a good story often does in the religious world. Again, though we know the outcome, the heart races, and the adrenaline kicks in when we read, “When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.” To our ears, God’s request is outrageous. The logic of requesting a child’s life to demonstrate loyalty does not fit with the God of love we encounter in the Gospels.

To stop here would miss the most radical part of the story. In the end, God does not want child sacrifices. Thus, the high point in the drama is not the binding of Isaac, but the moment when Abraham is told to release him. As one rabbi explains, the Torah does not allow child sacrifice, which, by contrast, some of Israel’s neighbors viewed as a religiously inspiring act, for a specific reason: the story teaches us that an authentically religious act cannot be done through the harm of another human being. In a world where certain gods required sacrifices, the God of Abraham changes the narrative.

The theme so far in Genesis has been about the counter-narrative—or going against the way we’ve always done it, right? Consider Abraham—in a polytheistic world, Abraham chooses to follow one God. When God wants to destroy Sodom, Abraham argues with God not to and, in turn, changes God’s mind and saves the city. Isn’t it possible then that Abraham is the one testing God—saying in some way, "I am obligated to follow God's command. The outcome is not my problem, but God's." In a world of religious zealots, Abraham, like God, changes the narrative. If God is who God says God is, then God would save Isaac—Abraham calls God’s bluff. The story then is less so about obedience to God and more so about how we can become overzealous In our religious endeavors to the point that we are willing to risk people’s lives for the sake of our own policies, dogmas, or prerogatives.

The text is a terrible one that induces a lot of anxiety. But it also speaks to the power of compassion. God is compassionate and stops Abraham. In this scene, we also see an internal triumph of human compassion over a fanatical zeal that could lead a person to do violence in the name of God. It is a story that illustrates how humanity can, in fact, channel socially unacceptable, inherently violent human thoughts into more acceptable behavior. In this story, a ram is substituted for a vulnerable child.

What do we do with this testing? We must wrestle with it—we must wrestle with why it makes us so uncomfortable. Yet, we continue to sacrifice our children in cages at the border, in food desert communities, and in systems where anything but fostering happens. We must ask ourselves the hard questions—ones that lead us to reexamine our practices of giving. Are we doing more harm than good with our financial monies? Are we acting compassionately, or are we complicit in oppressive systems because it is easier than trying something new? Are we willing to ask the hard questions—like, how are we sacrificing the children of our church for the sake of our appearance?

The thing about the binding of Isaac is that it changes the relationship between God and God’s people. Compassion changes the relationship—changes the world, actually. It is compassion that leads to the unbinding of Isaac and further deepens the relationship between God and humanity. No longer is God a God who demands lives, but instead, God is a God who lives with the people, moving them, US, towards the place of promised peace.

We called her Ms. Fuerst. Not only because that was her name, but she was our student teacher. She taught us English and read great stories. She was the one who introduced us to A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe. She was one of my favorite teachers ever. But not because she introduced me to some of the classic young adult literature. Instead, because one day, she saw my anxiety before a test, and she had compassion for me. Ms. Fuerst was one of the first teachers to teach me about how to deal with my stress by breathing so that my mind could slow down and catch up with my thoughts.

Ms. Fuerst changed my test-taking approach because she had compassion for me.

Friends, in a season of life where so much is being demanded from us; so many voices calling for sacrifices; a plethora of systems that do not act in compassion—we must ask ourselves, “How will we unbind our hearts, our church, our city, and our world?” If the story of Isaac’s binding reveals anything to us, it is that it begins with compassion.

After all, in choosing compassion, Isaac comes down from the mountain, and the covenant continues…

Through Stained Glass: Splashing

“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

It has been a challenge to find joy lately, if I may be so honest.

My heart hurts for just about everyone and everything in the world right now. No matter how hard I try to keep away from the news, a privilege I’m well aware of, it seeps into my life, and I get distracted…and angered…and saddened.

The weight of it all gets to be too much sometimes.

Sometimes I want to go find joy. I want to create my happiness. I want to put myself in front of joy’s parade and wave to her as she drives by. I want to sing the song, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart….”

But…

Sometimes the very act of looking for joy makes me miss it. Which makes sense, considering the psalmist speaks to how “though weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Joy is a follower. It followed God’s people back to Jerusalem after their long stint in exile. The joy of resurrection came only after Christ’s death. The joy of the new creation comes only after we confess the ways we separate ourselves from God, neighbor, and ourselves.

Joy is a tag-along, like me, with my older brothers growing up. Joy doesn’t merely sit somewhere waiting to get plucked up like a daisy. Don’t bother searching for happiness. Instead, be ready for it.

Be open to joy.

I think I saw joy this morning. And like suggested above, it came after I got out of my own pity-party and looked up. Literally, I looked up from the news article I was reading on my computer and out my window. That’s when I saw joy:

A robin, splish-splashing in my dog’s water bowl.

It was beautiful. It was simple. It was joyful. The robin bathed for probably 5 minutes—splashing, swimming, and I’d like to think, playing. I’m not sure why, but it made my heart happy, and I felt joy. In a moment of overwhelming sadness and frustration, I became happy because of a robin swimming in my dog’s water bowl.

It makes me wonder how my days might change if I adopt the attitude that happiness can be a heartbeat away even when we’re drowning in grief and misery.

As this plump robin bathed, pushing water out of the bowl and sending drops flying each time she fluttered her feathers, I thought of something else that brings us joy.

My baptism.

You guessed it, as this bird bathed, which she does to loosen the dirt and makes their feathers easier to preen, I remembered how, through the gift of baptism, God has embraced me as God’s own and made me on in Christ’s body.

The same is true for all of us. In our baptisms, we are united in Christ’s resurrection and become a new creation.

The joy in this comes not from anything we’ve done, but tags along behind the grace of God poured out onto us daily.

It’s up to us to pay attention and open ourselves up to joy.

When we do, we will see it unexpectedly—like in a dog’s water bowl splashing in the summer sun, inviting us to remember that nothing will ever sperate from the love of God.

Through Stained Glass: Choosing to Laugh, a sermon

Grammatical Caveat: Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation (i.e., are written for the ear), the written accounts occasionally deviate from proper and generally accepted principles of grammar and punctuation. Most often, these deviations are not mistakes per se but are indicative of an attempt to aid the listener in the delivery of the sermon.

“Choosing to Laugh”

Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7) & Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-23)

June 11, 2020

Laughter.

The poet Robert Frost said that “If we can’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

Charles Dickens says in “A Christmas Carol, that ““There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”

The late great poet and activist Maya Angelou said, “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.”

Laughter has a way of relieving stress, releasing tension, and restoring hope. The power of laughter, psychologists say, is so strong that laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease. I guess laughing is the best medicine.

Today the Genesis text is about laughter. Actually, it is about so much more but the focus for us on Sarah’s laughter.

She laughs because of what the three strangers say, "I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife, Sarah shall have a son." From her tent, Sarah hears these words and does what anyone who is described as “old, advanced in age,” laughs. She has gone all her life with no children, and now, in the twilight years of her life, she will have a child?

Ha.

I was a fifth-grader trying out for the 7^th and 8th-grade basketball team. I wasn’t very big, but I was quick. The tryout consisted of basic basketball drills: dribbling, shooting, and passing. I was not Pistol Pete Maravich, but I could hold my own. At least until the defensive drills. Coach blew the whistle told all of us to get in line behind the free-throw line for defense drills. Wanting to make a good impression, my eagerness prevented me from thinking strategically about who I might guard. Instead of lining up behind or in front of someone like me, I found myself between two eighth-graders who could jump out of the gym! As you can imagine, it didn’t go well for me. I tried to go to the hoop only to have my shot blocked so hard it bounced off the wall. Then, when it was time for me to guard Omar Brooks, well, let’s just say I think that rim is still rattling from his slam dunk. It was embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as what happened next. Overcome with emotions and feeling like I lost any chance of making the team, I started crying. Then, one by one, I could hear the others laughing. As the laughter grew louder, my face turned as red as a Chicago Bulls jersey, and I wanted nothing more than to disappear.

Laughter.

It can hurt when you aren’t the one laughing.

             Did you know Abraham laughed at God, too? It is essential to know this because Sarah is often given a bad rap for laughing at God’s promise initially. It is true. In Genesis 17.17, it says that after God told Abraham [Abram at the time] that God will make a covenant with Abraham which will include many, many generations, Abraham fell on his face and laughed.

Did you know we sometimes laugh to protect our brain from going into overdrive? Take, for instance, those of us who have had to deal with tantrums with children. Psychologists say that human beings are programmed to spring into action when we hear cries of distress, which is why our blood pressure increases during these events. If there is no real danger, say, for example, you're watching a youngster, and they throw a fit because they don’t like that you told them that eating the packing peanuts from an amazon package isn’t going to happen. Laughter in this situation isn’t in a mocking way, but as an attempt to silence the false alarm, your ancient brain is sounding.

Laughter becomes a problem, however, when it becomes mockery.

Which is what I imagine Sarah experienced her entire life. In the ancient world, a woman’s worth was based on her fertility. With no children, Sarah had no power.

Until she laughed.

At God.

And the story changes, the power shifts, and we are told that nothing is difficult for God. God is relational, hospitable, and covenantal. The laughter of Sarah comes from the message that God will bring new life into the world through her, and that this new life will be a great nation, and that God has been, is, and will always be a God who fulfills promises.

The story ends in laughter, kind of. We see that Abraham and Sarah have a child and name him, Isaac. In Hebrew, Isaac means ‘he laughs.’ Here Sarah’s laughter is likely the laughter of joy, rather than the laughter from her earlier, disbelief. Sarah went from laughing for protection to laughing out of joy. A reminder that God is one who is big enough to handle our laughter, because God will have the last laugh always: that love will triumph over death, a new day will rise even after the darkest of nights, and joy will come in the morning.

The part I’ve skipped, an essential piece to this remarkable story from Scripture, is that the reality of God’s new covenant came only when Abraham and Sarah opened themselves and their home up to the strangers who visited. In receiving them, they were able to receive the new word from God—that nothing is too difficult for God.

Is there?

Friends, there is humor here, perhaps even comedy, but it is a comedy in the classical sense, in the way that Dante’s great work was titled the Divine Comedy. This isn’t comedy in the spirit of stand-up routines or canned laugh tracks, but comedy as something so extraordinarily good that it’s hard to believe, something so out-of-the-ordinary that we laugh until the tears stream down. It’s what Frederick Buechner calls “high comedy”: “the high comedy of Christ that is as close to tears as the high comedy of Buster Keaton or Marcel Marceau or Edith Bunker is close to tears -- but glad tears at last, not sad tears, tears at the hilarious unexpectedness of things rather than at their tragic expectedness.”

Is anything too difficult for the LORD? Can God bring life even out of the dry husk that is Sarah, not to mention 100-year-old Abraham, he who was “as good as dead,” as the writer of Hebrews acerbically puts it (Hebrews 11:12)?

Another miraculous annunciation, this one to a young woman, answers the question: “Nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

Abraham falls on his face in a fit of laughter. Sarah laughs behind the tent door. And the Holy One (I believe) laughs with them at the divine, incredible absurdity of it all. Given the humor of the scene under the oaks of Mamre and the comedy of a God who acts in unexpected ways to fulfill God’s promises, it is entirely appropriate that the child of the promise should be named “Laughter.”

Laughter is good. Laughter can heal. Laughter is what inspired Omar to come to my rescue, wrap his arm around me, and said, “You play good 'D,’ Quine.”

Through Stained Glass: Feather

I found a feather today.

It came floating by as the winds whipped through the trees.

I’m curious about this feather for it is along, white that fades gray and then black. Feathers fascinate me, so I google the anatomy of the feather.

Just like I would in Mrs. Somogyi’s science class, I got overwhelmed with all the information. Still, re-learning words like afterfeather, quill, downy barbs, and rachis, I find myself intrigued—even more!

I keep reading. I pretend I’m researching. I rediscover the beauty of birds.

Did you know as there are different types of hair on furred animals, birds have different kinds of feathers, each having a particular function?

The feather I found is big. I keep reading, wanting to know what the length means—come to find out, it is a flight feather. 

The feather I found, I believe, is part of the tertiaries group. They are the feathers closest to the body.

At this point, my research gets good. Or, as Marty McFly would say, ‘Heavy.’ But not in a downy way.

The feather I found is the result of growth. Did you know, “Like hair, feathers develop in a specialized area in the skin called a follicle? As a new feather develops, it has an artery and vein that extends up through the shaft and nourishes the feather.” From there, the feather keeps growing, developing, which includes a lot of blood moving through the feather. It sounds scary, intense, and fragile. Yet, no matter how it feels for the bird, it is all necessary for its life and ability to fly.

As a theologian, here is my favorite part about birds and their feathers. Periodically birds will undergo molting—that is, the replacement of feathers by shedding old feathers while producing new ones. Factors like the change in daylight can trigger a bird to molt. Essentially, a bird molts because it needs new feathers to fly.

The losing of feathers for new ones to grow, which is the very definition of change, is essential for the livelihood of birds. The feather I found is a sign that one of our winged friends of the sky underwent a transformation and was able to fly high because of it.

I found a feather today. I am curious about the feathers I find. How did it get here? What happened to the bird? Why this feather and not that feather? My curiosity leads to a better understanding of the molting process for birds. The curiosity didn’t end with the bird, though. I find myself asking while holding the thing of hope, “What do I need to molt to fly? How am I responding to growth that may not be very comfortable? Why do I resist this change?”

One last thing about the feather I found.

Though this isn’t the feather from a hen, it brought the image of one to mind. As the shade trees swayed, the garbage cans rattled, and the shutters slammed, I was reminded of how in times of trouble, in the hours of uncertainty, and amid darkness, God longs to, desires to gather God’s children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

The feather I found reminded me that even as we molt, God keeps watch so that we may know the freedom that comes when we let go of the old to experience the new.

Through Stained Glass: Choosing to Dance, a sermon for Trinity Sunday

Grammatical Caveat: Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation (i.e., are written for the ear), the written accounts occasionally deviate from proper and generally accepted principles of grammar and punctuation. Most often, these deviations are not mistakes per se but are indicative of an attempt to aid the listener in the delivery of the sermon.

“Choosing to Dance”

Genesis 1.1-2.4 & Matthew 28.16-20

June 7, 2020

Trinity Sunday, the Sunday, the pastor usually takes the day off, leaving someone else to preach about the Triune God.

It is usually the Sunday when those leading a children’s sermon bring in a baseball, an egg, or even a glass of water to explain the Trinity. While the intentions are good, they a lot to be desired. Why? For instance, water, while it captures the idea that God is one, it doesn’t do an excellent job of showing how God is three and one at the same time. This view, also known as "modalism," was rejected by the early church.

The next step in trying to explain the Trinity is merely saying, “The Trinity is a mystery, and thus, cannot be explained.” Yes, this is true! The Trinity is a mystery. When we describe God, we can only use similes, analogies, and metaphors. All theological language is an approximation, offered tentatively in holy awe. So, yes, our communication fails, but we can’t throw the baby out with the baptismal water in our efforts to explain the Trinity. I love what Jesuit priest Karl Rahner said about the Trinity, "Christians are, in their practical life, almost mere ‘monotheists.’ We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.”

Yet, we must speak more about the Trinity. We need to explain the Trinity. We can be transformed by the doctrine of the Trinity.

Wait, pastor. Didn’t you just contradict yourself? You said our language fails, and then in the next breath, you said, “We need to explain the Trinity.” What gives?

First, we absolutely must maintain humility before the Great Mystery; otherwise, religion worships itself and its formulations instead of God. In our adventure into the life of the Triune God, this is essential.

Next, I do believe we need to talk more about the Trinity. The way to explain the Trinity is by experiencing the love of the Triune God. This will require us to let go of the egg, the water, and the clover, and walk into the flowing love of the Trinity. To know and be transformed by the Trinity, we must choose to dance.

To dance, we must give ourselves permission to enter into the music that is the mystery of the Trinity. By this, I mean, we need to see the ‘mystery’ of the Trinity as something that can’t be understood, but instead, it is something we can endlessly understand. As one theologian said, there is no point at which you can say, “I’ve got it.” Always and forever, the mystery gets you! In the same way, we don’t hold God in our pockets; instead, God holds us and knows our deepest identity. The first step in the dance with God is that God is the dance. The dance is called Love.

Love. The entire Christian faith rests in and on Love. Love is what created in the first place; Love is what defeated death and brought about resurrection; Love is what gives us life now. Scripture affirms this when it declares that God is love. I love [see what I did there] how one theologian puts it when she says, “The name “God” points to this mystery of love in its unlimited depth, the center of all that is; love that overflows onto new life. God is not a super-natural Being hovering above earth, but the supra-personal whole, the Omega, who exists in all and through all.”[1] The nature of God is love. God exists as love. God is love.

What kind of love? Isn’t this the question? Surely God isn’t the love we have, for say, our favorite baseball team or tacos, right? Correct. The love of God is relational. Again, Ilia Delio gets to this beautifully when she says, “God is love—eternal, divine, overflowing, personal love. Love goes out to another for the sake of the other and manifests itself in relationship. Divine love is personally relational—Trinity: Lover, Beloved, and the Breath of Love.” What we read in the Genesis text, what we see in the commission from Christ, and what we receive in the Spirit is the knowledge of how from all eternity, God has sought to love another, to be love in another, and to be loved by the other forever. This other is Christ, who is the aim and purpose of our lives.

What does this mean for us? I’m not much of a swimmer these days, but as a child, I loved the water. One of my favorite things to do was make a ‘whirlpool’ by swimming around and around until the current took me by itself. The love of God is like the flow of the whirlpool—the love shared between the Father/Mother, the Son/Christ, and the Holy Spirit is a gentle flow of love. It is a flow that doesn’t force you in, nor will it pull you under, but instead, it brings you it carries you deeper into the center of the pool—the heart of the Triune God.

Yes, the love of the Trinity is a dance. It is one we are invited to participate. Father Richard Rohr says this about the flow of God as dance, “God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three—a circle dance of love. God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself.” God is dynamic, always moving, creating, and loving--inviting us to dance in the liberating flow of Love.

Church, here is why all of this is important. To understand the Trinity as a detached, static explanation of a God up there prevents us from entering into the life-giving flow of love that is God. We limit what the love of God can do in our lives when we try and figure out the math behind it all. The transforming love of the Triune God exists not in the names of the persons themselves, but in the relationships shared between the Father/Mother, Son/Christ, and Holy Spirit. The real and essential point is how the three “persons” relate to one another: infinite outpouring and infinite receiving.

We need the Trinity. We must talk about the Trinity. We have to explain the Trinity but not with our silly analogies of baseballs, butterflies, and different identities of a ballerina. No, we must explain it by how we experience the Trinity. Here’s the thing, friends, the Mystery of God as Trinity invites us into full participation with God—a flow, a relationship, a waterwheel of always outpouring love. God is a verb much more than a noun. God as a verb means God is actively creating and continuously dancing—and in turn, inviting us into the flow. This is important because if God is love, and if we are in God, then we are Love ourselves. God isn’t interested in hell and death, but instead, God is pouring out love.

So why should we fixate on anything other than love? You see, friends, I believe that when we resist the flow of the Trinity, when we push back on the abundant and free love poured out upon us by God, that is when we experience pain, suffering, and injustice. When we try to dam up the love of God, that’s when humanity tastes the dry mouth of death. When we try to lead the dance instead of letting Love lead, that’s when we experience isolation so deep that we react with violence and despair. The Christian life is a commitment to love, to give birth to God in one’s own life, and to become midwives of divinity in this ever-changing world. We are to be wholemakers of love in a world of change.

The love of the Trinity is transformative. The love of the Trinity, which flows like a lazy river at a water park, is what will lead us beyond the ways we restrict God's love. When we enter the flow of the love shared in the Trinity, that is when we will see God's peace dwell in our midst. When we come to the dance of the Trinity, that is when we will walk along still waters where racism, sexism, homophobia, and all the other prejudices that stand in our way from becoming the beloved family are washed away. When we allow the love of the Triune God leads us in the dance that is our life, we will no longer live in animosity towards others or demand control of the other or creation, but instead, we will all become lovers of the Divine. When we allow the love the Trinity to consume us, we will come to know what it really means to live, and move, and have our being in Love.

God is Love.

God is flow.

God is dance.

I guess the question Trinity Sunday asks of us is, "Will you have this Dance?"

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[1] The emphasis in italics is the author’s, Ilia Delio